Stupid Things I've Thought
I have thought a lot of stupid things in my life.
I used to think, “Asking for a friend,” meant, “Hey, I really could use a buddy in this endeavor.” For example, “Anyone know how to replace the ink in an HP printer? Asking for a friend.”
I still kind of like my version better, even after learning that the real intended meaning is something like, “This question is totally not for me. My fictitious friend is the dummy.”
Once, when I was staying with relatives in Massachusetts for a long weekend while I was in high school, my uncle told me that the extra-charred treetops on the asparagus he’d served for dinner was in fact, “Boston-style.”
In the moment, I simply smiled and nodded, since I like most foods just a little bit burnt. Until over a year later, when it dawned on me that the burnt asparagus had nothing to do with a local culinary flare and everything to do with the fact that he’d had a hell of a time getting the kids to bed and had forgotten the oven was on.
Once, a friend told me that the reason his cousin was so tall was because she was a sailor. We were bowling when he shared this information with me, and I have no idea why this topic had come up, but I remember simply responding, “Oh?”
I spent the entire rest of the evening picturing his very tall cousin with her knees up to her chest, trying diligently to row a dingy across Lake Erie, as I wondered why in the hell height would be evolutionarily advantageous when rowing (or sailing) a boat? Two to three years later, his cousin popped up on my “people you may know” suggestions on Facebook. Her last name was Saylor.
It hit me like a lemon cream pie in the face: Height was simply in her family’s, the SAYLOR’S, genes and had nothing whatsoever to do with an aquatic profession.
I tell you all of this to underscore that when I say I have thought some truly dumb things in my life, you will know I mean it.
Another very stupid thing I’ve thought and continue to think from time to time, is that I can’t do it.
I think I can’t write.
I think I can’t or shouldn’t deviate from my, “normal,” job to go type things that fall anywhere on the spectrum from irrelevant to sage online for tens and tens of people.
I think I’m not smart enough or good enough or safe enough or brave enough.
I think that I don’t know what I’m doing, even as I’m doing it.
These, friends, are pretty dumb, unhelpful things to think.
Sometimes, our brains take longer to buffer and light up that lightbulb then we’d like. Sometimes our thoughts are anything from unkind to ignorant. Sometimes, we need to snap ourselves out of it and ask, “Wait, what?” instead of carrying a wrong and very silly thing around with us for hours to days to years to the grave.
When you catch yourself thinking a stupid or mean thing in the future, or right now, write it down. Challenge it. Tell it to someone else and ask, “Does this make any sense??”
Maybe they will say yes, they also thought “Boston-style” meant burnt to a crisp, then you’ll both have a good laugh and make a pact to watch more Food Channel and learn to pronounce things like “haricot vert” correctly.
Or, maybe, they’ll say no, your thoughts are wrong and your brain is being an asshat who deserves a timeout and a talking to.
You can do it,
I can do it (maybe probably? There I go again…),
We can do it together.
Smartly Yours,
Emily Rose // Miss Magnolia
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